


Normal Life

by navaan



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Family Feels, hinted romance - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 22:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5516267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jimmy hears about Kara he wonders what she'll be like. And then all questions are answered for James.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normal Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [htbthomas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/gifts).



“You have a cousin?” James asks slowly. He and Clark are sharing a late breakfast at Clark's favorite diner. “I mean really? Why hasn't the world heard of her yet? Where is she?”

Clark smiles his friendliest smile, amused by his eagerness. “Unlike me she wasn't a baby when Krypton was lost. And through messed up circumstances she came years after me. By the time she arrived, I was grown up already. And she had lost her parents. Her whole world.”

He knows that Clark sometimes gets very quiet when he thinks of Krypton, that sometimes when he has the time, spends days at his Fortress learning about what Krypton was like, about their science and secrets. A few times Superman has taken him there, as a friend.

“We thought that while she was a scared child, she should have the chance at a normal childhood, to heal.”

James nods. “And then?”

Clark shrugs. “It's up to her. One day she will not hold back any longer. People have no idea how hard it is to not step in all the time.”

“It's what makes you a hero.”

“No, Jimmy,” Clark says and chuckles. “Everyone can be a hero, if they just try. It's a responsibility. And a huge one. Kara should have a choice about it. She'll be ready, when she's ready.”

“Kara? That's her name?” 

“I really shouldn't give away other people's secrets. I trust you to protect mine.”

The fact that Superman trusts him enough to tell him about his cousin, about everything, is humbling. Here is the most powerful being on this planet and he chose little Jimmy Olsen as a friend. But then he's not only Superman, he's also Clark Kent, mid-western farmboy and mild-mannered reporter. 

He wonders what his cousin is like.

* * *

“You probably did this a hundred times before with Clark, James,” Kara says as she's hovering maybe a foot above ground and hold out her hand to him.

“Not as often as you probably think, Supergirl.” He grins as he reaches up and their hands touch. “And never like this.”

Kara looks actually flustered for a moment. “He never took you flying?”

“Not outside of wanting to get me from one place to another.”

“Oh,” Kara says and thinks about that, cocking her head to the side and thinking about that. “I see.” She holds up her hand a little higher, silently urging him to take it and he does, and then he also takes the second offered hand. They slowly rise into the air.

His muscles lock under the sudden strain, but she pulls him up effortlessly and holds him at her side, smiling. “We can break through the clouds if you want.”

Beneath them National City is spreading out, lit up and sparkling in the night like a shiny jewel. He misses Metropolis sometimes, but National City is his home now and from up here it's just beautiful. And while he left the best friends he could wish for in Metropolis, Kara is here, new friends and a new life, all here.

“I want that,” he whispers, realizing that the height, the amount of falling he would have to do before he ever hit the ground should make him more nervous. But it doesn't. He's safe here with Kara. She'll never let him fall.

She giggles, a free and honest sound and as she rises up with him there is no strain, no insecurity. Here she knows who she is and where she belongs and what she's made for.

Here she isn't just Supergirl or Kara. She's Kara Zor-El, last daughter of Krypton. And she's radiant and whole.

* * *

At the end of the day they sit together on a rooftop. Dawn is breaking as they are sipping milkshakes through straws and watch.

“I don't think I've ever done that with anyone who isn't Alex,” Kara admits. She is still dressed in her costume, and there is still the strong sense of power about her. Like Clark she can embrace her power and shine with it and in the next moment act so human, so soft and normal and insecure of her own place in things. But not out here. Out here the choices are clear. 

“Can we do it again?” he asks. “It's amazing.”

“Yes!” she shouts excitedly. “Yes, it very much is. It's so freeing to come up here and just let go.”

It sounds like she's talking about the rooftop, but she is still talking about flying. “Must be hard keeping your feet on the ground sometimes.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “No, it actually isn't. I've had a ground beneath my feet for all my life. It's where it belongs. Just flying is so... so...”

“Flying.”

“Exactly. Out of all the powers that is the one I love the most.”

He laughs. “Clark said the same thing to me once.”

“He told me when I arrived,” Kara says. “I remember. He crouched down before me, my little baby cousin, suddenly a man who did not need my protection and said, that it would all be alright, just wait and see, because flying would be the most amazing thing.”

“He didn't need your protection anymore, Kara, but I think he was glad that he wasn't the only Kryptonian on the planet anymore.”

“We talk,” Kara tells him with a glint in the eye. “That is we don't talk very often, but we chat pretty regularly. Less suspicious. He says I should come visit him in his fortress, now that I've decided to embrace flight and superspeed after all.”

“Have you been yet?”

She nods. “It reminds me of home.” After a moment of reflection: “Of Krypton.”

“It's an amazing place.”

“Want to go again sometime?” Warmth wells up, as she smiles at him with the brightest most beautiful smile imaginable and then she's Kara, just beautiful kind and excitable Kara who sees the best in everything. 

“Yes,” he admits and smiles back. _I'd go anywhere with you._ He doesn't say it. He doesn't want her to think he has a crush on all things Kryptonian, because that's not it. The world makes enough if his special relationship with Superman. “Sounds like the perfect weekend trip.”

“Weekend, meeting the family.”

“We could take Alex.”

Kara's smile widens, then she speeds away and is back beside him in an instant, sitting there like nothing happens only a light draft and the movement of her hair giving away how fast she must have moved. She's typing on her phone. “Clark says, Saturday is fine.”

He laughs. “Alright then. You're on.”

What people would never get about being friends with Supergirl or Superman was this: In the end they were just normal people, who wanted to do normal things, who wanted to _have_ normal things. “I'm glad to know you, Kara.”

She laughs and launches herself in the air. “Because I can fly you anywhere you want.”

“Because you are you.”

She winks at him. “Right back at you,” she says and then gives him a rueful smile looking off into the distance and listening to thing he can't hear. “Robbery.”

“Go.” He shrugs. “I'll find my way down.”

He is still smiling as she becomes a streak of red and blue and blond hair and is gone.

He makes a note on his phone about Saturday. It's not like he doesn't know her family already. But this... was going to be nice. Normal and different.

Just like them.

It feels like both of them have finally arrived, grown up, found their place.

It's a good feeling.


End file.
